new love

i have always been repulsed by bright, cheery colors. call me pessimistic. well, until now. my choice colors were dark, rich tones like deep purples, maroons, golds and browns. i don't know what did it, but i prefer dark no more! i can't wait to get rid of all our dark furniture and have been BEGGING joel to let me paint our side tables and chest-of-drawers in our bedroom white. dark is just so drab and white is, well, bright. :) and oh so clean.

maybe its just the springtime getting to me, but my new favorite accent color is, surprisingly, YELLOW! never in my life have i been a fan of what i always considered an obnoxious color. but i have officially fallen in love. not that i plan to spaz out and paint all our furniture bright yellow, but when its paired with neutral colors like woodgrain, gray, cream or white, i LOVE it! i just like that its so bold and happy.

i bought a dress a few weeks ago that is yellow and white, and i can't wear it enough! i know its a big color to wear this summer paired with gray, and maybe that's why i'm so drawn to it (because i've seen it more than ever) regardless, here are some of my favorite yellow things that have encouraged this new sunshine passion of mine:








oh, and for those of you concerned, i have entered the "itching phase" of a bad sunburn. but, i do have to say that my sunburn of the century is healing quite nicely. peeling has been minimal and it surprisingly turned into a pretty nice tan. however, i put lotion on like its going out of style and find myself slipping in my shoes as i walk and my mouse at work slips out of my hand constantly. although, my skin has never been so soft! haha.

pain brings pleasure

i have never been so sunburned as i am now. me, kendra and jamie laid out this saturday from a little before noon to 2 something, and ive already been through one bottle of aloe vera. ouch. it also doesn't help that one part of my face is red and the other isn't, haha. wonderful. i have a big pitch coming up at work on tuesday and i'm praying that peeling will be to a minimum. ugh. any tricks besides keeping lots of lotion and aloe vera on to prevent peeling will be beneficial!?!

so, on a side note. since i've been lazy and recuperating, i've had a lot of time on my hands. i love to read blogs and learn about other people's great ideas. joel calls me a voyeur, but i get inspired by seeing what other people think to make. i've been keeping a book with ideas for when we buy a house. from color palettes to furniture, i'm borderline obsessed :) yesterday, i found this idea on apartment therapy's blog and fell in love. joel has made it perfectly clear that a HALO room would be his dream when we buy a house, but i want a room for people to be able to stay and sleep. so, i found this and it seems to have solved our problem of seating for joel and friends playing HALO and then beds for people to sleep.



its basically two twin beds and those yellow foam mattresses folded in half strapped with two bands. they are lifted with legs that they added and then at night, you just move them around next to each other. so clever. consider it in my book. :)

picnic in the park

how beautiful is this weather?!? me and joel were excited about the weather and decided to have a picnic at the park. i thought i'd share some pics. as you can see, joel is never too keen on a photo op unless it involves snipers, power grenades or whatever they do in HALO, but i'm determined to have albums and albums full of pictures to look back on when we get older. he'll thank me one day, hopefully. :)

all smiles...kinda


joel taking random pics without me realizing


he's just so adorable!


it was so fun and relaxing. no distractions and the park was nearly empty, considering there was a frat party crawfish boil going on across the park. there definitely wasn't a shortage of country music, trucks, tahoes, and visors.

after the picnic, it made me realize that the last time we went on one was when we first started dating a little over 2 years ago. it was by the levee because i was living near campus, but fun nonetheless. i managed to scrounge up some pics of that little outing:

raise your hand if you need a tan!




what a difference. probably not drastic to any of y'all reading this, but i can't help but think of how well i thought i knew him then. such a naive way of thinking. that would have made me 21 and joel 22, what a difference a few years makes.

in the course of 2 years i've learned that joel:
::drives like a grandpa...good luck if you're in a hurry...he's a man of the law and doesn't go a mile over it
::has a dead tooth that almost got knocked out in 5th grade...he's been hardcore even as a young boy :)
::and I LOVE movies but we have distinctly different tastes in genres, which makes us use that compromise muscle quite often
::hogs the bread basket at italian restaurants
::could eat breakfast for all 3 meals of the day
::usually takes longer than me getting ready...that's right folks, he doesn't just wake up with perfectly spiked hair :)
::is one of the top best HALO players in louisiana...seriously, theres a list out there that ranks players by state...joel found his name, and it was like we won the lottery
::has the BEST smelling cologne in the world and no one but me knows what he wears...he used to hide it in his truck so no one would know. i knew he really loved me the day he let me see the name, haha.
::is wise beyond his years...he constantly forces me to think outside of the box and to understand what i believe

i could go on and on but what's exciting is that i probably haven't even tapped into all the things that i will learn about him in the next 2 years. but hopefully our next picnic will be sooner than later. :)

what about me?

i used to do these little installments of "random facts about me" on xanga, so i'm bringing it back on blogger. thats right, get excited. i have a few more since my xanga days, so i figured i'd share.

::i hate, and i stress HATE taking showers. its like i'm a kid again, and showers are my enemy. they're just inconvenient; however, as annoying as they are, i do shower. i just don't like it.

::i read all magazines from the back to front. i think this stemmed from me as child being forced to read books and having to do summaries. i would read the back first and keep reading until i got a good enough grasp of what was going to turn in a summary. the first few chapters are boring and everyone knows the best part is the end...just call me impatient

::i can't get comfortable if i smell that an animal has been there. i realize this makes me sound like a horrible person, but i can't explain it, it just sicks me out and makes me want to itch. yes, while most people see animals as cute and cuddly, all i see are flea traps and a smell so strong and stinky that it will stay on me and my clothes for days.

::im honest and blunt to a fault when i talk to my closest friends. i put it all out there and have a hard time keeping what i think to myself. i've learned that not everyone can handle that, haha.

::joel is officially the funniest person i've ever met or known. when we were just friends, i thought he was humorous at best, but since we've been married, i just can't get enough of it. i'm laughing right now just thinking of all the funny things he does. haha. its ironic too because when i first met him, i immediately wanted to rule him out bc i didn't think he was funny and he spiked his hair. ha! if only i had known he was playing up his "mysterious" side at the time. he makes me laugh so hard every day, and its become his goal in life to keep me laughing. he does a great job, and i'm very thankful for that.

well, thats all for now! you'll just have to wait for the next installment to learn more. :)

picture perfect

i love pictures and could look through them ALL day if i had the time. i don't even have to know the people in the pic to appreciate it. i especially love pictures that reflect art in some way. i love being creative and when i see people being creative in unconventional ways, that just makes me happy.

here a pic that i thought was really cool:



at first you may miss the reflection of the heart, but then when you see it, its so evident and you don't know how you missed it the first time. i think this is great and makes a big statement in a small and simple picture.

another:



how can you not love this picture? Its a big trend right now and you may see some ads nationally that incorportate this kind of style of illusion. Very clever.

speaking of ads (one of my most favorite topics):


isn't this hilarious? i'm all about alternative marketing, and when i see ads like this, it makes me want to think of what we can do for our clients.

in the spirit of great pics, one of my absolute bffs is getting married soon, and she just took her engagement pics. the pics came out SO great! her sister, lorien and an aspiring photographer, made the magic happen. for more pics, you should check out her blog on my blog roll.



this was one of my favs because it was like we caught a sneak peek of the lovebirds in their element. yay for love and capturing it on film. :)

hope everyone has a great weekend! me and joel actually have fun plans, and i'm so excited. one of my high school friends is coming in town to go to a concert in BR and wants to hang out and get to know joel too. its so weird to me that some of my high school friends (aka girls i grew up with from elementary to graduation)don't know him. but hopefully that will change as we all start to spend more time together again since we all parted ways for college. we have a beach trip planned, and i seriously couldn't be more excited!!!

delicious, chocolaty goodness

in case you don't know, i am a complete and utter chocoholic. i LOVE chocolate and would bathe in it if it was sanitary. dark chocolate, milk chocolate, mint chocolate...yummmmmmm. to be honest, i just have a pretty big sweet tooth in general. sooo i had been eying these red velvet cake balls by bakerella (check her blog out on my blogroll for more cute things to bake):



and i have been waiting for a time to make them. well, joel was very excited because the astros were having their first game of the season, so that seemed like a good enough reason to me! they weren't hard to make and i ended up bringing some to work because there were so many. work loved them and joel devoured them. heres a pic of the final product for your viewing pleasure. they're no bakerella, but blogs are no fun without some visual stimulant, so i try to make mine a little less boring...



doesn't that just make you want to lick the screen?!? i used devils food cake mix and whipped choc. icing. these are so fun bc you can used whatever cake combo you like and they make SO many. i have WAY too many leftover and its like they are calling my name in the kitchen. "jenny, one more won't hurt." lies, all lies. ive managed to control my craving for today, but i can't be held responsible for my actions tomorrow. ive been begging joel to finish them off. but his sweet tooth isn't nearly as big as mine.

i love making things for him and watching him take his first bite. its just so rewarding. :) but i think he's too easy to please or is just being a good husband. "oh wow, this is great!" or "oooh, this is delicious!" i mean, he can't like EVERYTHING i make. i browse through recipes online looking for things that look cheap, easy and fast. i have big plans for his birthday and wish may 20th was way closer. i've found a few good meals and have slowly been "testing" them on my unsuspecting husband. but you really can't go wrong with joel with some good sausage and waffles, mac and cheese, or lasagna. the nights we have those meals=less dinner talk, more joel engulfing his dinner plate. maybe thats the real test if he likes what i make, the speed in which he eats it.

now, i'm off to go eat a fat-free, sugar-free pudding cup and not think about the calorie-saturated chocolate balls sitting on my counter.

living is fun

Wow. Sorry for the delay in posting. I am going to get better at this, I promise. So, I thought I'd share with y'all something I found interesting at work. On my desktop at work, I get C.S. Lewis quotes everyday. It's all part of iGoogle where you can set up your page how you like. This one stood out to me recently, and it made me stop and think, so I really liked it:

"In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance,[Lucifer] could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige."

Inital thought: Was he crazy?? How could you be so dumb to leave that or get so power hungry? But then you think: How many times do I, or we, take forgranted the good that surrounds us daily to pursue something greater for ourselves? We think we have it so rough and tend to focus on the bad instead of the good because it stands out. Good doesn't equal press releases or air time on 6 o'clock news. And when it does, we barely remember it. All the bad things we see stem from some sort of selflishness or power struggle. Murder, drugs, stealing, lying, unfaithfulness, and the list goes on, just turn on your TV set. Why are we never happy with what we have been given? America's mindset has a lot to blame for this mindset we have acquired. The constant battle to the top not caring who you hurt along the way, the pursuit of money and pleasure, making yourself look better no matter what the cost or just plain being selfish.

Selfishness ultimately keeps us from being who we are in Christ. How can we see Him if we are focused on us and our pursuits? When you are constantly striving every day to attain your own goals and not His, I think that battle never ends. There is no attainment in the end because ultimately it was pointless. Whats the point unless He is wrapped up in ALL you do? Thats my daily battle. Forgetting the good and looking to the future and how it can be better even though the present is already great. Waking up and seeing a new day as a chance to glorify Him instead of seek my own ventures or just exist in a world without living.

This C.S. Lewis quote reminds me that each day is full of joy, fun, love and just things to sing about regardless of how we are perceiving it. It also reminds me of the movie "Enchanted." haha. Such a cute, girly movie. She could see no wrong in everyday life, and everything she saw made her super excited and eventually turned into a song of some sort, haha. Not that we have to be that extreme or anything because thats just annoying. But sometimes I think we have to get out of our mindset that we are forced into everyday by TV, peers, media, etc and remember where we come from and how great life can be.